Louis J. Milione

Louis J. Milione was appointed as DEA Principal Deputy Administrator on August 1, 2021. Milione serves as the principal assistant to the DEA Administrator, leading an agency of more than 10,000 public servants—including nearly 5,000 Special Agents and 800 Intelligence Analysts—who work in 239 offices across the United States and 92 foreign offices located in 69 countries. Prior to his appointment, he worked in the private sector for four years between 2017 and 2021.

In 2017, Milione completed a 20-year career with DEA, culminating in his assignment as the Assistant Administrator, Diversion Control Division from 2015 to 2017, where he oversaw all matters related to DEA’s mission of regulating more than 1.6 million DEA registrants across the entire pharmaceutical supply chain. He also spearheaded DEA’s domestic and international efforts to prevent, detect and investigate the diversion of pharmaceutical controlled substances.

Milione began his career with DEA in 1997 as a Special Agent in the New York Division office. His other assignments included being a founding member and eventual Assistant Special Agent in Charge of DEA Special Operation Division's Bilateral Investigations Unit. There he planned and executed high risk investigations involving multi-tier criminal networks, high-level transnational criminals, and corrupt foreign officials. For more than a decade, Milione and his teams operated throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, Central America, and Europe, conducting some of the Justice Department’s most sensitive and significant criminal investigations.

He is a graduate of Villanova University and holds a Juris Doctorate from the Rutgers School of Law.